Portal:Visual arts

The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is a privately owned museum whose stated aim is "to celebrate the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum". It was originally in Dedham, Massachusetts, and is currently in Boston, Massachusetts. Its permanent collection includes over 700 pieces of "art too bad to be ignored", 25 to 35 of which are on public display at any one time.

MOBA was founded in 1993, after antique dealer Scott Wilson showed a painting he had recovered from the trash to some friends, who suggested starting a collection. Within a year, receptions held in Wilson's friends' home were so well-attended that the collection needed its own viewing space. The museum then moved to the basement of a theater in Dedham. Explaining the reasoning behind the museum's establishment, co-founder Jerry Reilly said in 1995: "While every city in the world has at least one museum dedicated to the best of art, MOBA is the only museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the worst." To be included in MOBA's collection, works must be original and have serious intent, but they must also have significant flaws without being boring; curators are not interested in displaying deliberate kitsch. (Full article...)

Self-portrait, c. 1845

Paul Kane (September 3, 1810 – February 20, 1871) was an Irish-born Canadian painter whose paintings and especially field sketches were known as one of the first visual documents of Western Indigenous life. Paul Kane grew up in York, Upper Canada (now Toronto) and trained himself by copying European masters on a "Grand Tour" study trip through Italy, France, and England 1841–1843. In 1845, by which time he had closed his studio in Mobile, Alabama, he set out on his own from Toronto to sketch the portraits of Indigenous leaders and the lifeways of their peoples. After visiting a group of Anishinaabe leaders who were meeting at Saugeen/Zaagiing, Canada West, in late June, where he sketched portraits of leaders like Ojibwe Maskuhnoonjee/Big Fish and Ojibwe Maticwaub/The Bow (aka Jacob Metigwab), he canoed from Penetanguishene north through the islands of Georgian Bay with a man named Dillon, reaching Manitowaning, Manitoulin Island, in the second half of July. There various groups, including Odaawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe, came each year to receive presents from the British government. There, during a stay of two weeks, Kane was able to sketch portraits of some leaders, such as the famous War of 1812 leader Odaawa Sigenock/Jean-Baptiste Assiginack, and Shawonosowe, a local Ojibwe leader, whose people honour him by naming their school on Whitefish River First Nation after him. After being advised by a Hudson's Bay Company factor at Sault Ste. Marie to secure permission of Sir George Simpson, governor of the company, before attempting to venture farther west, Kane next to the annuity payment on Mackinac Island. From there, he took a steamer to Green Bay and travelled from their by canoe up the Lower Fox River to Lake Winnebago and on to Lake Poygan for the annual annuity payment in October of Menomini at Paygrounds on that lake. Potwatomi and Menomini were not interested in sitting for him, and he could complete only graphite sketches in a small notebook, although he did sketch Oskosh, the famous Menomini leader.

After returning to Toronto for the winter and securing Simpson's support, Kane set out on in June 1846 on a second trip, across the entire portion of North America west of Toronto, up Lake Huron, across Lake Superior to the Kaministiquia River, and up it by the normal fur-trade route to Rainy Lake, Rainy River, Lake of the Woods, and the length of the Winnipeg River before arriving at Upper Fort Garry in the Red River Settlement in lateacross the Rocky Mountains to Fort Vancouver (present-day Vancouver, Washington) and Fort Victoria (present day Victoria, British Columbia). (Full article...)

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